FAQs about Faculty Information System (FIS)

Faculty Annual Reports:

Q1 : Why is the 2017 Faculty Annual Report deadline on January 31, 2018, this year?In
recent years, the annual report was due in mid-February, but because
the annual report will be a factor in faculty salary increases, the deadline
was moved up to coincide with the annual budget process. (Most Rice
academic schools had already moved their internal deadlines up.)

Q2 : What should I do about FIS records from previous years that are incomplete or inaccurate?For now, please concentrate only on 2017 information for your annual report. See Q7 for more info.

Faculty Information System (FIS):

Q3 : What happened to FARIS, the system we used for our 2016 reports?FARIS
is being discontinued. Our faculty found it too complex and difficult
to use, and it did not live up to a number of its promises.

Q4 : What is the plan for the Faculty Information System for the future?We
will use a refurbished and somewhat enhanced version of the “old FIS”
as a bridge solution for the 2017 annual reports. Then we will do
further evaluation and planning for a longer term solution that fits the
needs of Rice’s faculty and administration.

Q5 : What features and improvements over the old FIS can we expect for 2017 reporting?Many
fields will be prepopulated from Banner, including courses taught, grad
students advised, research grants, and demographic information. Faculty
will be able to export their 2017 publications from Google Scholar and
upload them into the FIS.

Q6 : Is the look and feel going to be the same as the old FIS? Will we have to learn a new interface?The
interface will be basically the same as the old FIS. The only thing new
to learn will be if you want to use some new functionality for
downloading your 2017 publications from Google Scholar and then
uploading the file into the FIS.

Q7 : What will happen to the information I entered last year in FARIS?The
information has been preserved. However, you will not see it in the FIS
at this time, pending a decision on the system to be used for 2018 and
beyond. If you need a copy of last year's FARIS annual report, send a request to vpaa@rice.edu.

Q8 : Will there be Scholarly Interest Reports, as in the old FIS?No. Unfortunately, this feature has been suspended for this year.

Q9 : Is anything entered in the FIS visible publicly or university wide?No.
The current FIS is only for the purpose of the annual report, and only
individuals with appropriate security in the system will be able to view
your information.

Q10 : Will department staff be able to complete annual reports on behalf of faculty?Yes. However,
if you want to download 2017 publications from Google Scholar, the
faculty member will have to log into their own Google Scholar account,
export the list in CSV format, and then send the file to the staff
member to be uploaded into the FIS. If new staff need FIS access, the
department administrator should email a request to vpaa@rice.edu and include the staff member’s Rice ID (E number).

Q11 : I notice that there are no teaching evaluation scores for Fall 2017 classes. Will these appear later?Yes. When the semester is over and the deadline for evaluations has passed, these scores will be added to the reports.

Q12 : Why am I unable to access the FIS from off campus?In order to use the FIS from off campus, you must use VPN. This is to protect your own and others' personally identifiable information in this and other campus systems.

Q13 : Can I cut and paste a whole publication or presentation citation from my CV to the FIS?No.
In order to have data that is useful for reporting purposes, elements
like title, journal name, page number, etc., must be entered in discrete
fields. Therefore the complete citation field is no longer available.
We hope that the new upload feature from Google Scholarwill help to mitigate any inconvenience to faculty.

Q14 : When I try to generate my annual report, the year 2017 is not available in the dropdown list. How can I get it to appear?In the left navigation menu, under Actions, click My Defaults. If there are any years entered in the User Default column, delete them, and hit Save. Now try again to access your current year report.